[2] Later studies indicate that Hassall's corpuscles differentiate from medullary thymic epithelial cells after they lose autoimmune regulator (AIRE) expression.

[5][6] The function of Hassall's corpuscles is currently unclear, and the absence of this structure in the thymus of most murine species (except for the New Zealand White Mouse strain) has previously restricted mechanistic dissection.

In the past decade, researchers found tissue-specific self-antigens in Hassall's corpuscles and revealed their role in the pathogenesis of diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, autoimmune thyroiditis, Goodpasture's syndrome, and others.

They also discovered that Hassall's corpuscles synthesize chemokines affecting different cell populations in thymic medulla.

This article incorporates text in the public domain from page 1274 of the 20th edition of Gray's Anatomy (1918)